Such was the lay of the harper poet, and all were alike enchanted with the music ; they and the god with the thyrsus admired the Attic song with the lovely tones of the fit setting.
Second, my lord Oiagros wove a winding lay, as the father of Orpheus who has the Muse his boon-companion . Only a couple of verses he sang, a ditty of Phoibos, clearspoken in few words after some Amyclaian style :
Apollo brought to life again his longhair’d Hyacinthos :
Staphylos will be made to live for aye by Dionysos.
Before the ceremonial was well ended, the people broke out into loud acclamations of propitious words with one voice and one tongue, and all the Satyrs roared. Bacchos leapt from his seat in haste, waving his right hand up and down ; Botrys ran up, crying Euoi and applauding the musical harmonies of the harper. The Lord crowned Oiagros’s head with ivy, and the father of Orpheus stamped his foot on the ground, as he accepted with joy the untamed bull, the prize of the singing, while his companions danced round him in a row. The man of Athens carried off the bearded goat with shamed hands, full of sorrow and envy.
Now Iobacchos with flowing hair brought out worthy prizes in his generous hand, offered for victory in the woven dance: a mixer teeming with old fragrant wine, a golden bowl which held infinite measures, spilling on the thirsty earth Lyaios’s juice of four years old. This was an Olympian work of Hephaistos the great master, which Cypris once gave to her brother Dionysos of the vine. A lesser bowl also he set before the assembly, solid silver, shining and round, which Bacchos had once received as a guestgift from the king of Alybe ; who lived in the rich country where the black hole of the mines in the earth was whitened with silver nooks. Round the edge of the lip, on the bossy brim, was ivy twining over bunches of grapes in fine patterns of gold all round. This he brought and laid before them with deep belly still breathing the winepress, stuff of a younger vintage, must, a draught of unmated potation; for who would grudge a defeated man to drink of dew that cannot inebriate ?
When Bacchos had laid his prizes before the company, he called out the masters of the dance with attesting voice :
“Whoso shall contend circling with expert foot and win the match of nimble steps, let him take both the golden bowl and the delicious wine that fills it ; but whoso staggers and totters on moving feet, and falls, and proves the worse dancer, let him accept the worse prize. For I am not like every one else. To the prizewinner who conquers in the dainty beating of the dance, I will give no shining tripod and no swift horse, no spear and corselet stained with blood of Indians ; I make no summons to marksmen for straight throwing with the quoit ; this is no race for speed of foot, no sharp spear cast at a distance. In honour of Staphylos, the dead king, a man who loved the dance, I celebrate the sportive steps he loved. I offer no prizes for wrestlers with straining muscles ; this is no race for horsemanship, no games of Elis, this is no course of Oinomaos with death for his goodsons. My turning-point is the dance, my starting-point the skipping feet, the beckoning hand, the pirouette, the nods and becks and glances of the expressive face, speaking silence, which twirls the signalling fingers, and the dancer’s whole countenance.’
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